Attorney:

Overview

Practice Areas

Ms. Wharton has represented private companies, financial institutions, and non-profit entities on all manners of business transactions. Ms. Wharton works with clients to identify strategic goals and guides them through initial planning, negotiations, and project completion. She has counseled real estate and technology companies through entity formation, project and product development, financing, and the acquisitions and disposition of assets. With a focus on information security and emerging technologies, she has advised on non-disclosure agreements, equipment and property leases, freedom of information act requests, master consulting agreements, licensing agreements, and financing agreements. Ms. Wharton serves as outside counsel for numerous technology companies and is a mentor for CyberLaunch, an information security and machine learning startup accelerator.

Ms. Wharton applies her particular government policy, transaction, and finance expertise to advise school boards, administrators, and staff on concrete and effective solutions for bidding and contracting, equipment leasing, facility management, and procurement processes. Ms. Wharton is part of the HBS board training team approved by the Georgia Board of Education to conduct Board Training Workshops.

Ms. Wharton utilizes her first-hand legislative and business experience to advise clients on strategic messaging, policy impact analysis, and legislative initiative implementation. Specializing in technology-related interests, Ms. Wharton is a leading policy expert on unmanned systems and information security. She has presented on unmanned aircraft and information security related regulatory and legislative issues at industry conferences, continuing education courses, and legislative briefings. Her views on technology-related policy have been quoted in publications including the Atlanta Journal and Constitution and Tripwire’s The State of Security. James Magazine has recognized Ms. Wharton as a Rising Star and top ten female lobbyist in Georgia. She currently serves on the Government Relations Task Force for the Technology Association of Georgia and is an executive officer of the Atlanta Chapter of the Association of Unmanned Systems International.

Ms. Wharton's real estate practice encompasses a broad range of acquisition and development, financing, leasing, and management of commercial real estate projects for private corporations, municipal governments, developers, and financial institutions. She recently served as lead counsel on the acquisition of an existing 60-room motel and on a private entity's acquisition of an existing nursing care facility located in Georgia. She also works jointly with in-house counsel and teams of outside counsel, serving as Georgia counsel on a technology company's acquisition and development of a data center, the acquisition of a five-star hotel mixed-use project, the acquisition of existing farming and agriculture operations located in Georgia and Florida, and the acquisition of assisted living and nursing care facilities with Georgia operations. Additionally, Ms. Wharton supervises a team of paralegals and associates on commercial loan originations for a community bank and on the complete non-judicial foreclosure process on behalf of a national banking institution.

Ms. Wharton has represented private companies, financial institutions, and non-profit entities on all manners of business transactions. Ms. Wharton works with clients to identify strategic goals and guides them through initial planning, negotiations, and project completion. She has counseled real estate and technology companies through entity formation, project and product development, financing, and the acquisitions and disposition of assets. With a focus on information security and emerging technologies, she has advised on non-disclosure agreements, equipment and property leases, freedom of information act requests, master consulting agreements, licensing agreements, and financing agreements. Ms. Wharton serves as outside counsel for numerous technology companies and is a mentor for CyberLaunch, an information security and machine learning startup accelerator.

Education

Georgia State College of Law, J.D.
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, B.A.